On 2016-01-11 at 19:00:57 -0800, William Wright wrote:
> I've noticed that, in English, "North" is associated with "up" and
> "South" is associated with "down". This, and the ensuing train of
> thought, raised a few questions:
>
> 1. Why is this? Is it just happenstance or is there a definite cause?
A wild guess that sounds somewhat plausible is that it comes from map
orientation, but I have no idea if this is the case.
I've found an article that mentions a number of factors that helped
establishing this convention, and a pre-existing idea of north as up
(even limited to some limited language of europe doesn't come up,
however)
http://america.aljazeera.com/opinions/2014/2/maps-cartographycolonialismnortheurocentricglobe.html
> 2. Are there any examples of this in other nat-/conlangs?
I suspect it is widespread through most european languages; I know for
sure it is the case for Italian.
It would be interesting to research how old this association is, in
relation also with the widespread usage of maps among the wider
population.
--
Elena ``of Valhalla''